Had a co-worker really fall for it hard!
He was going on about how this Amway dealer he knew was really well-off.

He even moved in with the guy & then his life changed. He went from mild-mannered, just-divorced, middle-aged man to wild man within a week.
Well, as it turns out, the real money was coming from the sale of illicit substances & my co-worker got busted on a wizz quiz.

i had just finished building a dining table out of solid koa wood. spent about 3 weeks hand rubbing coats of real tung oil. the thing was just stunning. an optometrist assosciate suggested we meet for a business proposition. so he shows up, and throws a huge fit over this amazing table top. then it’s down to the bus. prop. amway. his first act is to hold a styrofoam cup over the middle of the table, and then to pour drain cleaner into the cup, which instantly melted the bottom of the cup, spilling this viscous mass of highly caustic chemical all over the tabletop, destroying the finish. he left real quick, at my recommendation. ended up working with him about 20 years later. we never mentioned it. the table never recovered, but has been in daily use ever since. no amway for me.

Years ago...Mid 1960s...A Shaklee/Basic H (multilevel marketing) rep came by our old house in Pasadena, CA , and talked his way into our home to demonstrate the stain removal power of the "all natural, organic, Basic H". Anyone remember this?

He noticed a small grease stain about the size of a dime on one of the seats of my mom's fairly new and stunning custom ordered Mt. Airy Furniture Co.
formal dining set. He proceeded to the spray his magic cleaner on the stain and scrubbed it into the size of a large dinner plate. My mom was speechless. My dad walks in from work and surveys the whole scenario. Basic H guy was beet red from embarrassment. My dad bought a bottle in order to get the guy to leave...NOW! My mom and dad stared at the now worsened stain...looked up at each other and just laughed hysterically at the whole mess. They had that bottle of Basic H in the service porch cabinet for at least 20 years.

This is also the point at just about every discussion forum thread on the Internet on Amway (or other MLM scam), where one or more "forum buddies" chime in wondering why nobody seems to have anything good to say about this *great opportunity*.

Just be aware that above all else, Amway's #1 goal isn't about selling product...their primary objective is to get you to buy into their business model and then recruit your friends and family to do the same. The only thing that keeps it legal is the fact that they do deliver tangible products...but make no mistake, product sales are purely secondary and of little consequence.

They're far more interested in making you pay for books and mandatory training courses on how to get rich with Amway, and charging you hundreds or thousands of dollars to attend mandatory meetings all over the country.

If I'm not mistaken, members are required to attend at least 3-4 of these mandatory conventions every year, which often require you to travel hundreds or thousands of miles on your own dime.

My son and DIL got roped into this for a while. At the time, they both had entry-level type jobs and were scraping just to make ends meet...but once they got hooked, they were expected to spend hundreds of dollars every month on training materials and product, regardless of their meager income.

After just a few months, they had maxed out their credit cards and were about $3K in the hole. We sat down with them and went through their bank records and discovered that more than half of their monthly spending was either directly or indirectly related to Amway...but their investment was only bringing in $50-75/month in revenue. But of course, Amway didn't care about their personal finances...their proposed solution was to buy more books, pay for more training seminars, and attend more conventions to expand their personal network.

Co-worker (well, ex-coworker) got into it, decided to piggyback "his" business onto "our" business. After we fired him (for other, unrelated reasons), we found amway promo materials at every account he hadn't managed to alienate with his "sales techniques". Funny part, if he had put as much sales effort into our business, he would have made plenty of money.

I dislike Amway as a company, but their products are better than that & they're concentrated.
We went & bought some at the actual Amway store. They had one in Rayong city, Rayong province. Our Amway friend had to be present to chaperon us in, but they had most of the household stuff.
In their instructions it warned about using too much & to use less than you're accustomed to. This was true.
Dishwashing liquid & other cleaners were really concentrated. Even their toothpaste worked better than the regular stuff.

One of my high school teachers showed up at my door pitching Amway. I was like, “Yes, we had a great relationship when I was in high school, but I really don’t need any cleaning products, and I’m definitely not going to sign up to sell Amway under you.” He went ballistic on me. Really uncomfortable.

There seems to be some expectation with this, or Tupperware, or the art scheme I was hit with, or the photography scheme I was hit with, that since you know them, you'll buy some stuff because you know them. Sorry, maybe I should, but I won’t, so don’t get pissed at me.

My wife looked at it for a short while. The products are very good, but I think that this style of selling has been superseded by the information superhighway. I haven't seen any mention of it around where I live for a very long time.

Trebor RenkluafI was hit by a parked car, what's your excuse?Silver Supporting Member

Was it in for several years. Have nothing negative to say. It's an imperfect business just like any business that involves people. And it's a business that requires effort. Most peoples problems with Amway are not with Amway itself but people in Amway. It's not pyramid scheme any more than any other business with a CEO and President and CFO are. In fact your up-line (the people who sponsor your) will never make more money off of your business than you will. There were no "mandatory" meetings. There were people guiding you on what it takes to be successful, which again requires effort. How much would it cost you if you wanted to see Tony Robbins live? And then you'd be all pumped up and come back home to your - gulp -job. If all it took was to hang out by the water cooler and hang out on online forums we'd all be billionaires, right? One thing I noticed is the people who were successful had an entrepreneurial mind set. Those who complained had a worker bee mind set. Ask anyone who's in business for themselves and they'll tell you it's no walk in the park. I kind of miss hanging out with all the positive people because most of the people here at work are pretty darn negative about it.

I totally got duped by a Tupperware salesperson. There was this hot gal at the post office who was always smiling at me & really chatty.
I'd just moved there & was using snail mail to contact folks back home, so I was in there often.

One day she asked me if I wanted to come to a party at her place. I thought I was IN!
Turned up with some rum & there were other people there. I thought fine, I'll bide my time while everyone gets intoxicated.

I was the only mug who turned up with booze, but that didn't stop me from trying to get acquainted with people.
Finally I realized what was going on when the Tupperware *mentor brought in a big easel with a large paper presentation he was going to show us!